


A Gem in a Rare Trove of Treasure

by susiephalange



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, F/M, Female!Reader - Freeform, Fluff, Healing, Miðgarðr | Midgard, Reader is Maria Hill's Cousin, The Avengers (2012) - Freeform, Waitress!Reader, Ásgarðr | Asgard (realm)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-09-19 05:12:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9420176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiephalange/pseuds/susiephalange
Summary: When most people say they have taken a lover, it sounds almost Bond-ish; like they had a day job, and a classy uptown life and had to splash out one day and find a person to warm their sheets by night and heart by day. But for you, the waitress who worked downtown by the train station in your little old town, when your friends suggested that's the label to put with you and the handsome stranger who won you over, they laughed.





	1. Silly, Blink-And-Miss, Short Human Life

**Author's Note:**

> It's 12AM. I can't sleep. So I've written some fanfic. Hope you all appreciate it, and I hope there aren't too many typos from my nightwriting escapade.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reader lives a normal life, working a waitress job, and falling for the raven-haired stranger. It isn't until a revelation she comes to realise her life is anything but normal anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all like the story, sorry if the prose is a little purple, but oh well. We all live for cliches in our fanfic, don't deny it.

When most people say they have taken a lover, it sounds almost Bond-ish; like they had a day job, and a classy uptown life and had to splash out one day and find a person to warm their sheets by night and heart by day. But for you, the waitress who worked downtown by the train station in your little old town, when your friends suggested that's the label to put with you and the handsome stranger who won you over, they laughed.

You'd laughed too; the idea that you, the waitress who had only finished community college because a generous check to pay the lot, taking a lover? You, who wore sneakers with more holes and wear and tear than the second-hand apron you wore to work, who belted out pop music in the car when nobody was listening, taking a fancy-schmancy lover? But that moment passed quickly, because it was true. You had a ... bedfellow, as you'd heard an elderly couple call it once. He was tall, with raven locks that grew longer with every time he came. He was pale, quite porcelain, and spoke with a clear voice, a practised lilt.

He said his name was Loki, which you decided was a fake name. It was the most exotic of fake names you'd come across in your line of work, where cheques came under _Hermione Niehaus_ or _John Smith_. Whoever he was, whatever he did for a living, he somehow thought to name himself after a Nordic God, and yet, he dressed like a biker, all leather.

He was kind, and warmed your heart and bed, yes, but he got you, really got you - he understood your need to understand what was honestly out there in the world, and talked of his home like it wasn't from here. He brought a book, once, which was older than you were, and leant it to you. He said it was literature translated from his language to yours, and said he hoped you would like it. In fact, that time was the last time you heard at all from Loki, the one man who wasn't after your body and time like all the others you had come across. He had lusted for your mind. Spoke poetry in everyday ways to woo, but he - he never came back.

Months passed, jobs came and went, and you spent the months slowly working your way through temporary gigs closer to the city of Washington, closer to where your roots were, to try to make something come of your silly, blink-and-miss, short human life. In your new work, an after-hours joint where people wore pretty shoes and drank toxic shots, the TV blared, the news waking them from their pretty party facades.

There was smoke, on the screen, heavy, thick, the type that chokes you once it enters your lungs. Through it, were the echos of screams, the pulse of police sirens, the hum of German voices, panicked, shrill. The words _'hostage situation contained_ ' darted onscreen, the figures of several people on screen. The Iron Man, the star-spangled Captain America, and -

You screamed.

The tray you were holding fell, toppling down, down until it smashed upon the ground. Your boss gave a shout, but you didn't hear his words, not over what was happening in Stuttgart. Because behind the two men, the American hero, and the billionaire superhero, was the dark-haired man you had become one with on more than one occasion, sitting there, bound, eyes wild, mad like a madman.

"__________!" Your boss boomed, "Clean up the mess, and take five out back to breathe."

 

 

 

You took ten, your pay packet, and ran to the one place where you hoped would help you with who you were searching for. After time passed, your cousin Maria had grown distanced from you, but no matter what, in every obligatory Christmas card she sent, there was always her work phone, and scribbled under it _'if you see something, say something x'._ You'd always assumed it was because she worked for Homeland Security, and that's why you never heard from her, but when you dialled, a computerised voice intoned. _You've reached the message bank of Agent M. Hill of S. H. I. E. L. D. -_ just as it went to enunciate the next part of the message, the familiar voice of Maria answered.

"There's a man on the television who I know, Maria," you burst, the words blurted out at once. "On - on the news. Dark hair, pale skin. Stuttgart." your voice sounds as wobbly as you are upon your feet.

You almost hear her grin in her voice. "Good, good, you're good, ________ - I knew giving you my number would be useful one day!" she nearly whooped, if counting her joyous business-talk counted as excitement. A lead. "Where are you? I'll send Coulson to get you on his way to Germany."

Coulson came, and was as silent as ever, the typical man in a suit, wearing shades indoors like he was a top government agent, but as far as you knew, that was exactly what he and your cousin were. As you sat in the small plane - a quinjet, he called it - hurtling towards Germany to pick up the man you had fallen so deeply for, the man who you had thought was a man, who, per the briefing from Agent Coulson, was man in gender, alien in race. From Asgard, the land of the immortals, the Gods of the Norse. You decided to be quiet. Listen. Because as soon as you came to Germany, the man who you had shared secrets with would get an ass-whooping.

But, alas, he was in deep custody by the time you got there, held by a man with an eyepatch, and, oddly enough, your cousin herself. Maria Hill. Before she looked you in the eye, the man with the eyepatch – Director Fury, as Coulson had told you – looked you up and down, handed you a clip board and a pen, and _harrumphed._

"She'll be the second to go in, after Agent Romanoff." Director Fury glanced away, focusing on the screen by the front of the atrium, where the man you thought you knew was pacing. He looked almost feline in there, almost more inhuman than you'd ever thought you'd see another being become. "I have a mask, and a voice changer, as to protect you, Miss ________, if you will agree to use them. On the board are instructions, things to do and do not do in a situation like we are under as of now."

Your eyes graze over the paper in your hands, and back to the S. H. I. E. L. D. agents before you. "With all due respect, sir," you hand back the clipboard, "I'm not quite sure you've had a situation like this one before."

 

 

 

The mask changes your features to be of a woman of ethnic appearance, wrinkled by the sands of time, the voice changer making you sound like someone who had just swallowed a beach, salt water and sand, and all the sandcastle toys too. Natasha Romanoff had exited, having found his play (something to do with the resident time-bomb, a very smart man you knew from the headlines of New York, Dr. Banner) and counting five minutes, you entered.

"I'll guess you're hired help," he commented on your appearance into the room in which he was confined in. You didn't look to him, ignoring Loki's words, the taunts. He was nothing like this when you were with him. His heart had sung poetry, and lain with you like a man without an idea of what time did to those who rose from the bed and went on with life. "What, are you deaf?" He jeered.

You shook your head. "Only to the man standing before me." you replied.

He seemed to like the riddles; from what you knew, the Loki before you was somewhat like the Loki before, who had made you fall in love with the idea of words being different to what they truly were, having side doors and passages through meanings from times before. 

"Another elder, lecturing me on my life." he dismissed. "You are all the same, here on earth. Saying you know me for what I am, because of my actions."

You shook your head, steeping your back to sit on a chair by the front of the glass. They had given you a shawl to cover yourself with, much like the ugly old wench who had cursed the prince in Disney's _Beauty and The Beast_. "But oh, I am deaf to your insults, trickster. I know you, I know your heart. What froze it?" you whisper. 

Loki frowns, silent. A beat passes between you, but before he can speak, you continue. 

"I read the words you shared with me, and took you in my home like a good stranger would," your voice crackled over the emotions, coming through strange with the voice modulator. "I felt your soul beside my own, and you come here, and spit on my feelings like they are nothing."

"Who are you?" He growls, fist raised to the glass. 

You shake your head, giving a rueful chuckle. "How could I think, a thousand year old god would remember my name?" you ask the cameras, the microphones planted in the walls, ask the man captured before you. You hear them protesting in the earpieces, telling you not to shed your disguise, but your heart bleeds for the man, and not with pity. Despite their interest, you shed the modulator, the shawl from your shoulders, the cybernetic mask from your face. "Loki, I loved you." you look at him with your own eyes.

He is silent.

Then, "________-"

"But the man I loved is dead," you interrupt, rising from the chair, turning your back to him. "He cared about life, never hurt a soul, at least, not with the raw fury, the intention I saw in Germany. You are dead to me, Loki, and if you come to my bed once more, expect more of your anatomy to be dead to me, in the literal sense." At this, you walk out, leaving him in there, alone to ponder. 

 

 

 

The melee fades, and New York is in tatters, and people are saying there was no such thing as aliens like it was just another episode of _Doctor Who_ and not real life that you had almost nearly died from the Chitauri, at Loki's lead. But when the base is blown up, and you are huddled in a shock blanket in the depths of the Helicarrier, you see a change in Loki as the mask is slapped on, manacles upon his wrists through the video-com link.

"I need to see him," you shout out, only to be heard by your cousin, Maria. 

She gave you the look. It was the look that suggested you were crazy, or that maybe what you believed was wrong, and it was just some dramatic _How I Met Your Mother_ crap that you were sprouting, but before you pleaded once more, she nodded. "They're in the centre of the city. I'll have an agent drop you down there before they take him away." she nods.

Before you know it, you're running across the field, through the barriers and hesitant police, because nobody in the history of the world messes with someone running toward the one they've been a lover to. You stop just short of them, watching the famous faces of Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Clint Barton -- with your own two eyes.

"Hell-o," Agent Natasha Romanoff grins, "You're _________, aren't you? Hill mentioned you were incoming." 

You glance to Loki, whose eyes are back from blue to green, who is watching you expectantly over the mask, through the gap his burly brother Thor shared. "Could I speak with him? We were...close at one time." 

The blonde Asgardian nods. "Yes. I have to him to Asgard for punishment very soon, so please, do not tarry." He urges, and releases the darker haired man from the mask across his mouth. 

He flexes his jaw, yawns, and almost at once, falls to his knees before you, like a priest worshipping their god, or pantheon. 

"I still love you," you tell him, voice soft like the breeze threading its fingers through your hair. "I think I know you were under the influence of something beyond my understanding, well, because you weren't _you_ at all, and - please don't leave me." you utter, falling to your knees too.

Loki nods. "I will be punished for my crimes upon Asgardian soil for that here on Midgard." he tells you, voice solid. "But I shall return. This I vow, because you are a soul I will never find a likeness to, a gem in a rare trove of treasure." his words sway you like they always do. "I love you too, my _______."

And with that, he is gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so after a little bit of reader-demand, I've made this multi-chapter. Should update soon.


	2. Mr. I-Abandoned-You-To-Take-Over-Your-Home-Planet-And-Got-Jailed-Indefinitely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reader lived a normal life, working a waitress job before falling for the raven-haired stranger, and being entangled of the lives of Earth's mightiest heroes. It wasn't too bad, unless you thought about the fact that your lover was locked away on another planet...and that because of it, you were estranged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GAAAAAH SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE OF THIS, I'VE BEEN SUPER BUSY WITH WORK AND STUFF AND THE WRITING BUG HADN'T BITTEN ME UNTIL NOW TO KEEP GOING PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!! AND ENJOY THE STORY!

When most people say their boyfriend had to go long distance, there's a lot of sympathy. Hugs and kisses. Warm cookies left at the door, pretty notes in pretty cards saying how sorry they are for you. But for you, you had no choice in it; the love of your life had once been laying beside you in the sheets, yes, but was gone, was brainwashed, was whisked away to the land where he was raised. Fathoms away from where you stood. But when people heard that you were in love with Loki, the guy who tore strips out of New York city and destroyed their favourite cafe downtown, they frowned, and didn't care for conversation anymore.

You didn't care for conversation, either, because talking of him hurt more than dreaming. You'd see the way his eyes were ice blue, and wicked, staring deep into your soul, taunting, treachery leaching from within. You'd see the verdant green, which was always his, would always be his, but were poisoned by the blue, treacherous blue.

If it weren't for your connection to the Avengers through your cousin, you would be sure that you'd never see Loki, son of Odin ever again, and be forever scarred by the memory of the lover from out of the world you knew. But you cradled the books he had shared with you, and graciously moved into the Avengers tower in New York, and got a job down the street from where you lived. It was lovely, for the first few months, but with every passing day, every passing holiday, you felt a growing sadness inside your chest.

You understood that he'd committed a crime, and you in no way were in love with the man who had committed it, but there was something inside you which made you want to have him beside you at night, to hold onto, to greet upon coming home, to take to Thanksgiving and share a present with on Christmas. You watched as Tony moved from Pepper to May Parker, Clint leave to visit his family, Nat take to internet dating and miraculously match up with Matt Murdock, the lawyer who helped around the legal matters of the tower.

When Thor came back from a long vacation with Jane, you snapped, rising from the sad stupor you put yourself in for all of that time, and did your best grovelling to the first in line for the Asgardian crown. Thor smiled, soft and small, his beard accentuating the sadness in his eyes. It had probably been a while since he had thought of his brother, having been away with Jane, and it showed.

But, unlike other unyielding attempts to access Asgard, this proved fruitful - as he was to return in a day, and you were more than welcome to come. At that moment, all you could do was thank him in less than coherent words, and run off to your little room to pack things in and try to not forget unimportant things. Before too long, the case was full, and all but the book Loki had shared with you, the fantastical one of which you loved just short the same amount as you did he, was in your arms. And not a day later, there was you biding goodbye, or at least, a temporary goodbye to the Avengers, and riding the rainbow bridge to Asgard. 

It was all you'd dreamed it to be - the city afire with gold, the aura of stars above the skies staring down upon your skin, the white-eyes of the gatekeeper Heimdall - all that Loki had whispered in your ear, had told you of. While Thor went on his way to the war rooms to debate with his father about tensions in the nine worlds, you were escorted down below the royal castle, where the prisoners of the King were kept.

There, sat Loki. 

His hair was a mess, long and bedraggled, his skin pale and eyes hollow from emotion. His feet were bare, his clothes ripped, trickles of blood staining his sole. It had only been a year and four months since he had been taken from you, but the God before you looked like he had aged twelve, and hadn't seen you for as long. He was a dying man. Small. Hurting.

But also, Loki was standing, his hair neatly combed; regal. Long. His jaw was held high, eyes regarding all with the air you'd expect of royalty, above it all. He wore the colours of his house, the bright emerald green that you loved on him, haunting leather ensemble that caught in your mind. He was a warrior. Tall. Strong.

Those escorting you stopped, but you did not. Slowly, you approached the transparent golden wall that separated the both of you, and bent to sit upon your knees at the gate. Neither of the Loki's in the prison turned their gaze to you - in fact, it would seem that they turned their nose elsewhere, in the direction you were not present. Without realising, a tear fell from your eye, as you raised your hand to touch the barrier. The gate stung upon your skin, an irritation that would surely increase if you tried to push through, you were sure of, and the tear, the little droplet that came from within you, splashed upon the marble floor.

"Of all your tricks, Odin, this is your cruellest," His voice was thick, yet weak, sad, but without emotion. "Leave me to rot." 

Your brow furrowed, and turning to the guards, "Let me in," you whispered. "Please." 

On one of the guards' belts, they pressed a button, and the wall before you descends. As soon as you step inside, it resumes its place, and you are isolated in the room where there are two Loki's inside, where the furniture is both regal and tidy and splintered around the floor. One of them watches you intently, his green eyes following you as you navigate around the broken stools and tables over the ground. The leather-clad Loki has a haughty air to the way he holds himself, the way he regards you.

"It has only taken you years to get here," he snarks.

You raise your chin. "Sixteen months. But you cannot judge me, _Mr. I-Abandoned-You-To-Take-Over-Your-Home-Planet-And-Got-Jailed-Indefinitely_." You snap. "So spare me any snark and angst, Loki, because I have gone through hell and back for you. I travelled to a new world! I've been exiled from my familiar circles for  _associating_ with you!" You scream. "So, please, give this mimicry up and talk to me through your own mouth," you turn to the Loki who sits on the floor, and grabbing a short plank of wood, you throw it through the illusion before you. 

He frowns. "How did you know?" 

You smile, but it is not a happy smile. It's wan. Tight. "I can see you both. Either I'm sort of magic in a mundane way, or you're getting slack, Loki." He does not laugh. You add, "It might have taken sixteen months, maybe because my mind is at war with itself over a male who has torn my soul and taken a piece for himself, and left me to fend for myself. You know what it's like to be rejected, from your own people, now imagine it for me, who has never had it happen! All because I dared to lay in bed and love the man whose brain was washed to take over Earth." You take a shaky breath, and feel a tear slip. "Forgive me."

Adjusting himself against the wall, he glances to the space beside him, bare of splinters and unpleasantness scattered. "Will you sit with me?" It is not a question. It is a plead. You do sit, but not close, keeping an eye on the two guards that stand on watch as you mingle with their prisoner. "Forgive me."

You lay your head upon his shoulder, feeling the essence of _Loki_ there, present, warm, alive. It can't be a dream, because you can smell his scent, can hear his breathing, the pitter-patter of his heartbeat's pulse under the hand on his wrist. 

"Aren't we a pair," you sniff, looking to his distressed hair, "The common waitress, and the alien prince," your hand on his stroked his skin, his fingers intertwining with your digits. "Don't tell me it sounds like a good story," you warn him, inhaling his scent. 

"It sounds like a good story," he repeats, despite your cautionary words, "But I should always think of that tale to be of the dreamer who watched the stars, who wanted to touch them upon her skin, and the globe-trotter who wanted nothing more than to make just one place his true home," Loki's eyes turn to you, their bright green aura stirring you with their beauty, their grace. "I have done so much wrong, have done too much bad in the world to keep this weight upon your chest."

You withdraw from his side. "Don't - don't you dare," you whisper. "If you leave me, I will haunt you until the day I die, and even then, will never cease," you threaten. "If loyalty, or devotion was defined in the dictionary, there would be a picture of me right here, right now, beneath those words. I will always love you, even if you are the monster under children's beds, even if you are a shattered mirror."

"Really?" Barely a whisper. Barely heard. But only by you.

You nod. "Honest."

There is a silence between the pair of you, but unlike before, it does not chill your bones, or break your heart. It's kind. It's healing. He clears his throat, and nodding, affirms your words, and wraps his other hand over his, and yours, and that is where you stay, silent, and, with each other's company. You're not sure whether it is half a minute, or half an hour later, but the thud of boots came, and from your heavy eyelids, you saw the dark maroon of Odin, and the crimson of Thor's cape appear. Loki shifts, aware of his brother's and father's scrutiny, but squeezing his hand, you compel him to stay seated, to stay beside you, to not fight this fight. 

The silence is broken when Odin clears his throat. "I have been in council with the lords and jury of Asgard, and heard word from your brother of this development," His voice is deep, and regal, and you cannot help but not maintain eye contact with him - it's almost like a primal fear of the peasant vs. royal complex. "I must say, Loki, my son, you have shocked me more than I believed you ever could."

Beside you, Loki narrows his eyes, but before he can spit out a burning retort, you interject. "Inciting a war while waiting for peace is not a tactic most fruitful, King Odin." 

You don't know where the fancy words have come from - you're just a human. A barmaid. A little ant in comparison to the gods you are surrounded by. But adrenaline is a funny thing, and yet here you are, and you're staring down the one-eyed bearded man you know from mythology as the ruthless King of the Gods. 

He cracks a smile. "I like this girl, Loki, she will be good for you, for all the trouble you have put yourself through." He glances to Thor, and adds, "In the discussions, we have deliberated a punishment more fit for you than solitary confinement - ten years without your _seidr_ to live a mortal life until the next court will come to session to review the next phase. You are fit to live with the watchful, honourable gaze of the Avengers on Midgard, and with your lady, the fierce _______." 

Loki nods, agreeing with his father. "I agree to these terms, my King." 

You bow your head, heeding the words, of both your lover, and your most likely, future father-in-law. "Thank you for this offer, King Odin." 

* * *

It is light outside, but through the thick glass of the new Avengers Facility the birdsong heralding morning have not woken you. The bedside alarm is turned off, and reads to be nearly eight o'clock, but thankfully, you do not have work today. Turning in the sheets of your bed, you're still not sure what has woken you from slumber. But as you turn, you see him - the man you have fallen for, had fallen for, will always fall for, curled onto his side, his wide green eyes taking in your face in the morning. 

"It's early, you can sleep in," his voice in the morning incites something in you, a flutter in your chest. "What is it? Why are you staring?" He asks.

You can't help but smile. "I'm just ... I'm just in awe of this, of you, of ... _being_ here," your grin widens, and reaching out, you cradle his face in your hands, and just touching his skin, you feel a fire building beneath your fingertips. "Gods, you're beautiful." 

Loki laughs. "But darling, that's what I'm supposed to say to you," he protests, and shifting beneath the bed sheets, he is closer to you, close enough to _smell_ , to see every eyelash on his face, "Since we have nowhere to be until later, I can suggest a method to make it up to you," he offers.

"Oh, silver-tongue," you grin, carding your fingers through his raven hair. "Show, don't tell." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, it's me, your friendly neighbourhood smut implyer. I probably won't write another chapter for this, but we'll see.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any requests, find me on Tumblr at @susiephalange, or [@phalangewrites](https://phalangewrites.tumblr.com/request_conditions) ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ✿


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